Deadly stillwater tactics and secrets

[gkieser]

YAY!!! I'm a member now!!!! I can finally hurl abuse at Junior members with a bit of conviction!

I'll try the fly as soon as I can get back to Natal to fish on some decent stillwaters as there are not too many down here that i am aware of.

[dlampert]

Hi Darryl

Tony has been out of it for a while, following some serious set backs in his private life a few years ago, which led to some serious depression. I spoke to him two weeks ago and he seems to be a lot better. He is in the process of having a custom built cane rod made to his specifications by a local rod builder as we speak. I hope to be sharing a bit of private brown trout water with him again soon.

Hi Chris,

Good to hear that he will be back on the water.

Regards,
Darryl

[Chris Shelton]

I was scrounging around some of my old flyfishing photographs one day for a calender idea that I was working on and not happy with the quality of my own pics decided to get in touch with Tom and Ed, who both generously allowed me the opportunity to sift through hundreds of their slides. I left Ed's apartment one evening with a box full of slides and a few flies that he wanted me to put to the test for him on my local stillwater. Amongst these were two 'flies' that he proudly presented to me in a closed fist, opening his hand under my nose at the last minute to reveal the contents. With a sheepish glint in his eyes, he said, "Try this....the one second fly!"

It took me a while to comprehend what this one second fly was all about, but realisation dawned as I stared down into his outstretched palm at two bare hooks. Ed's has always had a fascination for all the latest gizmos and gadgets that relate to fly fishing and these were part of his latest consignment of fly tying paraphenalia. Red anodized, surgically sharpened, Kamazan hooks! "Instant bloodworms!" he announced with glee.

Stepping over piles of books and boxes filled with all manner of fly fishing stuff, I 'boulder' hopped my way to the door, laden with a box full of slides and the two hooks gleaming in the lapel of my shirt.

Months went by and I forgot about those two hooks, which were now common residents of my 'not so often used flies' fly box.

Now this was in the middle of the Idis Valley dam's hay days, and I was fast becoming a local resident, hitting the dam at least 4 days out of the 7 on my way home from work. It had recently been stocked with the last remaining Jonkershoek breeding stock, the size and likes of which I had never seen in my life before. Fish in excess of 10 pounds were not uncommon in amongst the few hundred fish that were released into the dam, and although they were stockies, I went cross-eyed at the prospect of having one of them on the line.

I went on to catch many of those fish and quickly got the big fish thing out of my system. It was all too easy, so I gradually laid off, returning to my beloved streams again. Months went by and one evening I decided to revisit Idis Valley for an hour or two. Inquiring as to the fishing of late, the reports came back that the fish were full of nonsense, ignoring everything that vaguely resembled a fly. The fish had become highly educated!

I tried this and that for a little while and it quickly became apparent that what the guys were saying was indeed the case. I could see a few fish cruising the margins and they were not even looking at whatever I had to pull past their noses. It was then that I remembered Ed's 1 second bloodworms. Switching to 8X, I attached the gleaming red hook to my tippet and put out a short cast with the intention of intercepting one of the fish that were clearly visible as they patroled the margins. It was not long before one came into sight, and I quickly guessed the path he was going to follow, stripping a few metres of line in, in order to intersept the fish. It was like poetry in motion, everything unfolded in slow motion before my eyes. The 'fly' was dangling about 3ft below my greased leader. The fish casually swam up to it, opened its mouth, closed it and my little 3# Sage with its soft tip took care of the rest!

[MaXiMuM]

I've been meaning to buy a couple of those, now I think I will...

[Glans]

Thanks for these tips guys This makes me shiver of excitement

Would you use minnow imitation on dams?
I guest that there would me no minnows where stocked trout roam around, except probably in combination of bass?

Jannie

[Booger Rose]

Hi Glans, thanks for digging out this old thread, really enjoyed reading through it and have a few new (old) ideas to try on a stillwater on Sunday.

[Booger Rose]

I did some fishing today and had a very hard time on a nice stillwater. Only took three fish between 14:00 and 18:00. Coudn't figure out what was wrong and wish now I could have read this thread last night.

Just checked the weather site and saw the Barometer dropped by 5 points, going down the whole time. 5 points is a huge difference! No wonder nothing took the fly. It's time to get one of them fancy watches.

[poppernel]

Been perusing some old threads and found this one to be very enjoyable as I mainly ff stillwaters, snails and beetles in my view is a ''must have'' in any ff flybox on s/waters.

Lets get this thread going again as recently, newbies have requested questions relating to this thread

Dave

[gkieser]

Amazing how things change over the years! I haven't used the tactics I spoke about in a long time but specific concepts are achieved in different ways.

One thing that hasn't changed in my thoughts on stillwater fishing is the importance of finding the depth at which the fish are feeding, and trying to follow them through the column throughout the day, but now do it with changing fly lines rather than the dry dropper thing. I suspect that still has applications in smaller or shallower stillwaters but as Chris mentioned it's limited when the fish are feeding really deep.

Pauses in retrieves are still something that i use a lot, but not as regimental as in my initial post, and with a lot of different retrieves.

It'll be interesting to hear how people's approaches have changed over the years.

A New thing i have learned since then is the importance of working flies at the end of a retrieve, eg letting them hang when fishing from boats or float tubes (and to a certain extent bank fishing), and jiggling them up to the surface, to get those fish that so often will follow a fly until the last minute. There are so many different ways to end your retireve, so just experiment, but by just ripping oyur flies out of the water to cast again will rob you of a couple of takes in a day's fishing.

The more retrieves that you have confidence in, the more versatile you will be and will be able to catch fish on more occasions. Everyone has a favourite set of retrieves, but every now and again try out some strange stuff - pause randomly, speed up or slow down half way through retrieves - any change ups can make a fish's mind up for them. Try things like hand twists at different speeds, consecutive short 2 inch strips, even double handed retrieves at different speeds can change your fortunes for a day. Every now and again you will pick up a fish with these, and will have added a new retrieve to your confidence list.

One more thing that I try to do now - try to be attentive to what you are doing at all times in order to be able to repeat what you are doing. I have found that success in stillwater fishing can very much be about figuring out patterns (not flies) as to how the fish are behaving. I get so frustrated when i get a take, and then afterwards think "Now how many seconds did i count that one down for?" or "Which retrieve was I doing when that happened?". If you keep attentive, you can repeat these things and will get more takes thereafter.

Hope that helps - would be great to see what the experienced stillwater anglers have to say.

[chris williams]

Great and interesting comments/advice from an intelligent bunch of lads (NB - no Smiley..)

I go along with all/most of the above. And think like a fish (actually I don't know how fish think..) and where it'll be comfortable for them to eat food with the least effort/energy-expenditure, what are the guys eating and where will the food be (especially the daphnia and at what level they're in the water) and how will the food items behave/move and when...and then fish accordingly. Fish either where the wind is blowing terrestrials onto the water, or the other side of the dam where the wind is blowing into your face and surface chironomid pupae and other hatching aquatic insects are being forced into that windward side. Flyfishing's a simple pastime made complicated by people.

(Thank goodness it's not so simple or we'd all be bored whateverless after the first trip)